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2nd January 2003, Page 30
2nd January 2003
Page 30
Page 31
Page 30, 2nd January 2003 — COURSE
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Accidents will happen, but why does it take so long to clear the debris? Delays lead to missed delivery slots— many hard-pressed hauliers reckon that damaged vehicles should simply be pushed to the hard shoulder, even if this causes more damage. David Craik reports.

t must be tough working for a haulage firm named D Perfect & Sons—the vagaries of the transport scene make it an impossible name to live up to. So it was with keen interest that the West Thurrock-based firm's transport director, Wally Smith noted the recent news in CM that the Freight Transport Association wanted the government to reduce the time taken to re-open motorways following accidents (CM 31 Oct-6 Nov). An FTA spokesman maintained: 'The overall costs of queuing traffic by far exceed the costs of specialist manpower" Smith couldn't agree more: Our base is near the M25—we get caught in twohour traffic delays after accidents at least twice a month."

Hard shoulder

The delays, according to Smith, are caused by the slow removal of broken-down vehicles and debris: "All I am saying is get these vehicles onto the hard shoulder quickly and get the traffic moving again."

His words echo the views expressed in the ETA survey, which revealed that 73% of hauliers prefer "swift and robust" clearance of damaged vehicles after accidents as opposed to a slower, more 'sensitive' recovery.

Smith adds: "What has happened to us, so many times in fact that I can't put a number on it, is the refusal of RDCs to take our loads if we are even 10 minutes late with our deliveries. When you've driven all the way up to Birmingham and this happens it is heartbreaking. But the RDCs don't care." This problem is definitely not restricted to the congested South-East. Up in Fife, Mick Riddell, a director of Ladybank-based Riddell Transport, regularly has to cope with delays on the Forth Road Bridge. "Accidents and breakdowns of vehicles mean getting in and out of Edinburgh is an absolute nightmare," he reports.

"Get these vehicles moved as quickly as possible. If a 44-tonne truck has gone over on its side and has a load of computers then 90% of them will already be destroyed. So the answer is fire it on its wheels and get it off."

But say the vehicle concerned is in Riddell Transport livery? "Yeah. No problem," says Riddell. "Just quicken the process. Why can't we have a recovery vehicle permanently placed on the bridge?"

Smith and Riddell both stress that this robust approach is not applicable where fatalities are involved. "Obviously the police have to do their work in such a situation: nobody is talking about a willy-nilly approach there," says Smith. It goes without saying that dealing with casualties will always be the top priority. But the vast majority of hauliers would doubtless applaud anything that gets their wagons moving again as fast as possible.

Nonetheless there are dissenting voices, including the people who have the job of removing stranded vehicles. Ken Wills, owner of vehicle recovery firm Cornwall Commercials, says: "Fine— push a vehicle over to the hard shoulder. But then tell me who is going to pick up the bill from the insurers? Us! We live in a liti

gious society now. The police know this, so even if there is a risk of a fatality in an incident, or a smash is believed to have been caused by a mechanical failure, they investigate it much more thoroughly now. We can't move until they are finished."

What about Riddell's idea of keeping recovery vehicles parked up near major routes? 'Again no problem," says Wills. "But who's going to pay us to have that vehicle sitting there? Because of congestion problems even if we were at key points we couldn't get there quick enough.

"Only last week I saw a recovery vehicle caught in a queue trying to get to an incident. Although I may be talking myself out of a job here, I think that prevention is better than cure. Maybe drivers shouldn't drive around like lunatics!"

John Webster, claims manager at insurance firm Robinson Leslie Group, is equally scathing: "Robust clearance will lead to increased claims and increased premiums. Even if a vehicle is pushed to the side there will still be delays when a recovery vehicle has to come back and lift it off."

Best evidence

This point is echoed by Steve Brewer, road policing support inspector at Essex police. It's his team's job to examine the scene of both fatal and non-fatal accidents: "When we get to an accident we almost go into slow time. We treat these like a crime scene.

'We get one chance to recover the evidence; we can't come back and shut the motorway at a later date to look again. Even with overturned vehicles there are health and safety issues related to the load being carried. You just can't be swift and robust."

This doesn't mean that the police and recovery operators don't appreciate hauliers' frustrations; the problem is serious enough for the government to take notice. Transport Secretary Alistair Darling has called on the Highways Agency to dream up initiatives to lessen delays.

Last September the Highways Agency duly set up a team of 12 'route stewards' and 16 Incident Response Unit vehicles to monitor the M25. The stewards patrol the network using vans and motorcycles; they attend serious incidents and tell a central command unit what equipment is needed. The His are expected to reach the site of an incident within 20 minutes— they can handle everything from closing lanes to repairing crash barriers and patching the road surface.

Traffic cones

Brewer, who has worked with the stewards and the IRUs, praises their work in shortening delays. "These vans are full of kit," he says. "From fluorescent jackets to large traffic cones putting our Thin cones to shame! They are a great help to us."

A spokeswoman for the Highways Agency says the IRUs have now been rolled out to other areas of the country including Greater Manchester and Birmingham (see box).

But she adds that the Agency's involvement will not stop there; she believes more can be done to shorten delays: "We are presently carrying out a review with the Association of Chief Police Officers to see whether our IRUs can take on a more advanced traffic management role from the poke. For example, organising specialist vehicle recovery and recovery of goods. We can take on these smaller roles while the police collect any criminal evidence."

The findings of the review are due to be published any time now.

Policing group

The six police forces that routinely patrol the M25 have also formed the Integrated Policing Group working with the Highways Agency to find more effective ways to respond to incidents on the biggest roundabout in the world.

Brewer says one area is the creation of diversionary routes: "There is a saying that an incident on a motorway grows at a mile a minute, so a 10-minute delay can lead to a 10-mile tailback. We want to try and disperse vehicles in these tailbacks to other roads including A-roads quicker and more effectively.

We also want to improve advanced warnings so that if you are driving in the Midlands heading for Kent, you can avoid a major smash on the M25. These solutions and more careful driving are the answers to the frustrations that hauliers feel because, in our more litigious society, there will be more detailed investigations of accidents."


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